The Digital Cleanup Show

Episode Summary: Part 2 of the simplify series — a practical walkthrough for decluttering your digital world: email, photos, backups, desktop and downloads folders, apps, and social media follows.

What You’ll Learn

• A practical Inbox Zero and email-as-todo-list system
• How to organize and back up photos and media with a simple year-based folder structure
• A full checklist for decluttering desktop, downloads, browsers, and installed apps
• How to cut notification overload on iOS and clean up social media follows

This follows directly from Episode 108: The Priority Show — after cleaning up home and work environments, this episode turns the same process toward the digital and online world: computer, iDevices, social media, and every online platform in between.

Why Declutter Digitally?

More breathing room, less stress, more productivity — the same mindset hack as physical decluttering, just aimed at screens instead of closets. The less there is to think about, the more there is to actually enjoy.

Email Management

The goal is Inbox Zero — the inbox functions as a to-do list. Once an email is replied to or followed up on, it gets archived.

Photo & Media Organization

• Export all photos from iPhone/iPad to a computer or external drive.
• Use Lightroom or Photos to organize and clean up.
• Keep a simple folder structure: one master “Photos” folder, organized by year inside it.
• Delete junk photos as part of the process.

Backup Plan

Two external drives, kept as exact clones of each other, backed up automatically 24/7 via Backblaze.

Clean Up Desktop & Folders

Desktop clutter causes real stress — it shouldn’t function as an organization system. Purge the Documents and Downloads folders, empty the trash, and clear out the junk drawer of zip files and DMG installers everyone accumulates. Clean up web browsers too: empty the cache, prune bookmarks and favorites, remove unused extensions.

Delete Apps & Software

If an app isn’t being used, delete it — including old bundled manufacturer software and outdated versions of Adobe apps sitting around unused.

iOS Devices

• Clear unread notification badges — Mail, Messages, Twitter, software updates, all of it.
• Delete or offload apps not used at least weekly or monthly.
• Unsubscribe from as many email lists, YouTube channels, and even podcasts as reasonable — the goal is reducing the number of things fighting for attention.
• Clean up social media — unfollow accounts you don’t recognize or can’t explain following, especially on Twitter and Instagram. Leave inactive Facebook groups, unfollow people you never interact with, and audit your friends list.

Productivity Toolkit

• Contacts — consolidate into one master list that syncs across every device (Apple/iCloud Contacts).
• Calendar — know exactly which calendar is the main one and trust that anything added from any device syncs everywhere (Google Calendar).
• To-do apps — consolidate everything into one simple system. Todoist and Evernote both got deleted in favor of Apple Notes.

Show Notes & Links

• Backblaze

Related Episodes

• Episode 108: The Priority Show